In 2017 an international art biennial is to be launched in Davos: the 2017 Kirchner Biennale Davos. To this end you are invited to help develop a model biennial that takes into account all aspects of such an event. Things to consider include a concept and theme, financing, logistics, marketing, architecture, exhibition venues and cooperation partners, selecting artists and curators etc.

For this construction of a possible biennial world various roles are to be assigned that you can apply for:

The project sees itself as a contribution to “design science” which is mainly concerned with designs and testing models, prototypes etc. What is important, though, is that it is not so much about innovative artefacts and corresponding applications as about designs of “possible worlds.”

At the same time it is up to each of the applicants to choose their positions. They can work alongside Voltaire and his optimistic hero, Candide, on the vision of an ideal world designed to meet the requirement of being “the best of all possible worlds,” or they can follow the example of the English scholar Robert Burton and fully surrender to melancholy, failure, and the great No-Purpose. For sometimes the one who fails is indeed the smarter one who is above the illusionism of the reality- capable and the hubris of the winners and doers.

Where all of this is heading is thus completely open and depends on the ideas and inspiration of the participants. Left or right turns are possible at any time and the so-called “magic roundabout,” a supreme challenge for traffic planners and participants, is therefore the appropriate symbol for this challenge. This roundabout can be passed in both directions; in an inner ring traffic moves anti- clockwise – the continental way, so to speak – while in the outer ring traffic always moves with the times. Access to and exits from this roundabout are regulated by additional small roundabouts. For inexperienced participants it can be easy to lose track…

With the WOF 2016 we are setting aside time for a journey. Following the un-necessity of ornament, we will go for walks – metaphorically and in reality, discovering places of E.L. Kirchner – setting forth to dreams may come. Finding ourselves in unexpected topoi, implanting the uncontrolled challenge of serendipity by trusting people to improvise navigation, and provide models as toys for tools. Within a given rhythm of walks and talks, we will meet in matter, performances, presentations, and dialogue.

To set the stage and content of the WOF 2016, we ask for proposals in formats which are open to experimentation and reflection while addressing topics of gesture and practice, model and example. We are asking for proposals to conclude what the WOF 2016 will have been once it is over: whom you will have met, what topics will have been discussed, what you will have discovered, etc.

Engaging this utopian picture in retrospective future feedback, we will unroll the ornamental present towards the WOF 2016, finalizing in the past of un-production.

As warm-up, we ask for the contribution in the sense of a «Letter of Interest» at our website, proposing your interest and involvement at the WOF 2016 and reaction to the following question:

How can the metaphor of a «model» help to understand the connection between ornament and unproductive activity?

PROTO_CALL for three days of collaborative work in the Kirchner Museum and surroundings May 5th -7th 2016

Like a museum, like a dream, like art, and maybe even life, WOF entails PARADOX. PLAYFULNESS chases away the hovering shadow of PRODUCTIVITY and yields spaces of careful unlimited activity. Retracing gesture as form and ornament as intermediary WOF is a dancing EXCHANGE of elegance and SIGNIFICANCE. Go for it like an unfolding vortex, like the almost invisible entasis.

WOF has a virtual and an analogue existence here and there. You can log into www.worldornamentalforum.ch and be in the WOF any time or you can ascend into Davos and be with Kirchner and others who expose themselves to the pleasant anxiety of no-how*.

WOF is an academic and abstract endeavour into the territory. We need to hack and circumscribe the assignment and we have to engage not with structures but with the material itself always in situ. WOF gives you a space to check your thinking with others, picking up the energy between Sein and Schein necessary today. WOF moves from craftsmanship-to object-to discourse, it asks you to get in line and talk to the people next to you do as much and as little as possible. Folding and unfolding. Welcome to WOF.